Jax for short, which he ain't

The other day, my sister-in-law gave birth to her first child, a boy, who is now my first nephew. His name is "Jaxon".

Maybe it's my curse as a lifelong (well, for all intents and purposes, anyway) Star Wars geek, but there's a special set of Star Wars geeks whose memories would be piqued, maybe with fondness and maybe not, by the name "Jaxon".

Back in 1977, Marvel Comics got the rights to do the comics adaptation of Star Wars, and their adaptation ran in issues 1-6 of their SW comic. After that, however, the book kept running, telling stories that took place in the days following the destruction of the Death Star. It was the first attempt at an "Extended Universe". (In truth, some of those stories weren't half-bad, honestly. Although some of them were that bad.)

The first storyline after Star Wars had Han Solo and Chewbacca leaving the Alliance so they could finally pay of Jabba the Hutt. En route to Tatooine, they are raided by space pirates, who steal all of the money Han intends for Jabba. Now poor again, Han and Chewie arrive on a dirt-poor world called Aduba-3, where they quickly find themselves approached by villagers whose lives are tormented by a gang of criminals led by a guy named Serji-X Arrogantus. Han and Chewie take the job, hiring a motley group of warriors and space pirates to fight off the interlopers. Yes, it's The Magnificent Seven or The Seven Samurai meet Star Wars; among Han's hires are an old and dotty man claiming to be a Jedi Knight (called "Don Wan Kihotay"), a walking porcupine who shoots quills, and a seven-foot-tall green rabbit.

I'm not making that last up:



There he is. His name? JAXXON!

I was really hoping they would use two X's in the spelling, to make this reference perfect -- but still, this is pretty cool stuff. Call him 'Jax' for short, which he ain't.

Something for Thursday

Going all "Showtunes" for a moment, this is one of my favorite of all Lerner-and-Loewe songs. It's from Brigadoon, and it comes toward the end, as our hero, the American hunter Tommy, realizes his dilemma: he is in love with Fiona, and that night is falling. (This last is important because the town of Brigadoon vanishes each night for a hundred years, so Tommy can only be with Fiona if he gives up his entire world to do so.) He's on the verge of staying, and he sings this song to Fiona. Here's "There But For You Go I".



The song is not heard in the film version of the show, due to time constraints, along with several other songs including two that were omitted not just for time purposes but for their risque lyrics.

"Belt" mean, no need rope hold up pants.

SamuraiFrog has a wonderful post about The Karate Kid. A brief quote:

I've always maintained that this is a great film, and seeing it for the first time in over a decade, I have to contend that this is still a great film. Seeing it as an adult, maybe I like it for different reasons than I did when I was a kid, but it's still as involving and enjoyable at 33 as it was when I was 8.

I still feel that Karate Kid is a great movie, despite some of the 80s kitsch sentiment that has unfortunately accrued around it.

Mr. Frog also, as long as I'm linking him, finally reached the scene in Twilight that compelled me to conclude that the book is, in fact, a giant literary turd:

Edward is so abusive, and Bella is so needy to be abused, it makes it impossible to feel sympathy or even like for either of these two self-absorbed assholes. What all of the little girls and unfulfilled women in their 40s creaming their pants over vampire boy don't seem to get is that living with Edward is like living with an alcoholic--only worse, because it's an alcoholic who keeps reminding you constantly that he could kill you at any moment, and in fact wants to, but is trying really hard to control himself. He belittles you so that your heart melts at the smallest compliment, he makes your decisions for you, and tells you it's dangerous for you to be near him while making sure never to leave you alone for even a moment. As my wife said this morning: "This is like what a date rapist does so that, when he rapes you, you blame yourself instead of him."

Amen, brother. The whole "fake-sex in the woods" was, for me, the straw that broke the book in two.

A Tango with Tiamat

George R.R. Martin reports on the writing of A Dance with Dragons: he now has 1100 manuscript pages, and hopes to bring the book's final manuscript in under 1500 pages. He says that the book is now longer than A Game of Thrones and A Feast for Crows, getting close to A Clash of Kings, and has a way to go before A Storm of Swords. Well, that's nice and all, but I'm not going to get happy yet.

I'll probably start a re-read of the series in a year, though.

For Parts Unknown

I've always loved some good travel writing, but over the last few years I've become even more obsessive about that particular genre. I've read four good travel books in the last few months.

One of the classic travel narratives is Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book I read many times during my college years and shortly thereafter, but which I haven't revisited since a re-read seven or eight years ago. I didn't become disillusioned with the book or lose my admiration for it (or for its less-read sequel, Lila), but my interests in such philosophical inquiry subsided greatly as I left school and entered the world where I needed to work and learn other things that became more interesting over time. But Pirsig's book has lingered in my mind ever since I read it.

That book uses the framing device of a motorcycle journey from Minnesota to California on which to hang a series of philosophical inquiries into the nature of "Quality", and other issues along the same line, such as "morals". (Lila would likewise use a journey as an umbrella motif for philosophical discussion, this time a boat traveling down the Hudson River.) I am less equipped now than I used to be with regard to evaluating Pirsig's philosophical claims, although I will note that they resonated deeply with me at the time I encountered them and for several years afterward.

Some months ago I spotted a book at Barnes&Noble, called Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Mark Richardson. This work recounts the experiences of the author as he ventures out on a motorcycle of his own to follow the same route, as closely as he can, that Pirsig himself took in the famed earlier book. Richardson's book isn't the same kind of philosophical exploration that the original ZMM is; it's rather a meditation on Pirsig's life and the way he came to write his book, and the way that the solitude of such a journey can lead one to introspection. I found it a fascinating book, although as travel writing in itself it's less interesting than it is in its reference to the book that inspired it. Thus I suspect that the degree to which Zen and Now would be rewarding to a reader would depend greatly on that reader's familiarity with ZMM in the first place. But there's a small danger there, as well, for such readers. Zen and Now is not a new author's exploration of the philosophical notions explored by Pirsig in his two books, and readers familiar with ZMM who come to this book for more will, instead, find themselves traveling land they are already deeply familiar with, alongside someone who isn't.

On the opposite end of a travel book that delves into philosophical territory we have The Ridiculous Race, by Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran, two teevee writers who decide to make a bet between them, with a very valuable boot of Scotch as the prize. The bet it simply this: leaving from Los Angeles, Hely will set out westward and Chandrasekaran will travel eastward, each one traveling around the world, but not using airplanes to do so. The first one to go all the way around the world, arriving back in LA, gets to drink the Scotch. One of the participants secures passage on cargo ships to cross the oceans; the other flies. So much for the rules, so really, there isn't a hell of a lot of suspense in this book. If you're looking for a comedy version of The Amazing Race, with a suspenseful run to the finish, this isn't it. But if you're looking for an entertainingly comic journey around the world, give it a look.

Finally, two books by one of my favorite writers, Bill Bryson: A Walk in the Woods and In a Sunburned Country. Bryson's writing always conveys to me a cheerful sense of curiosity and interest in his subject matter, even when he strays into darker material. These two books are perfect cases in point. A Walk in the Woods chronicles Bryson's attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail ("thru-hiking" is hiking the trail in its entirety), at which he is not entirely successful but more than enthusiastic anyway. In a Sunburned Country is very similar in tone, with just the location changed: in that one, Bryson travels to Australia and goes pretty much everywhere of note in that country. Along the way in both books, Bryson shares with us a great deal of historical and biographical background of the locations he travels in and through, so that as we go, we learn a great deal about the Appalachian Trail and about Australia. That's what should happen in the best travel writing, in my view. (Even if In a Sunburned Country is a bit scary sometimes, as Bryson apparently takes great delight in the fact that Australia is a land that, for the unprepared, can be very lethal and be very quick about being very lethal. Seriously, there are parts of this book in which Bryson almost seems surprised that he didn't die in some extremely painful way during his trip. Heat stroke in the Outback, poisonous plants, getting snatched by a crocodile and disappearing into the water with nary a ripple, shark attack, getting pulled out to sea by rip currents – there's a lot of grisly death here.)

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Everybody always asks about what book, or what movie, or what music, or what food, or what [insert item here] you'd take with you to a desert island. But nobody ever asks about the island! So, two islands:

Island A is a large island with good vegetation, varied topography, a sheltered cave, and a lagoon or two filled with fish. It is, however, very far away from the nearest shipping or air routes, so rescue is less likely.

Island B is a small island, not bare but not rich with vegetation either (maybe a copse or two of trees with smaller plants around), little natural shelter, and deep surrounding waters that don't yield as much fish. Long-term survival will be a significant struggle, but the island is close to shipping and air routes.

Which island do you want to get stranded on?

A query....

For several years now, this blog has received search-engine traffic under the search string "Is Norm Abram Jewish". Are there that many people who find Norm Abram's ethnicity or religious background interesting enough to Google? And for heaven's sake, why?

(Although, if I were to get a job working for Norm Abram -- who is a carpenter by trade and who has written books and appeared on teevee shows on the subject -- I could put one of those bumper stickers on my car, the ones that say "My boss is a Jewish carpenter".)

Sentential Links #186

Linkage:

:: Not to get all Bob Somerby on y’all, but I believe that the impeachment of Clinton—and the Village reaction to it—was the signature political/media event of my lifetime. The discussion surrounding the Polanski case reminds me of a weird photo negative of it—Clinton had to be impeached for a consensual relationship with an adult, Polanski should be pay no price for raping a thirteen year-old.

:: For every brutal, lawless and amoral act, there is a defense of it to be found on the Washington Post Op-Ed page.

:: Comparing Obama to Hitler betrays a willful and shameless ignorance of history and massive leap into a retarded Godwinism. This is, regrettably, par for the course for eliminationists who are buying into the hysterics of the right wing media, or otherwise speak Becklish. (And Alan's interlocutor over there defends himself: "I didn't compare Obama to Hitler, I just pointed out that they have some similar characteristics." That's Libertarian reasoning there, for you.)

:: Yes, Virginia, Glenn Beck lies.

Like a rug.

:: As a teenager I was offered a job writing for LAUGH-IN. I declined in order to go to college. So I missed my chance to write comedy for Richard Nixon.

:: Yeah, that's Wonder Woman. As a pirate captain. Of an all-female pirate crew: (Oh, wow....)

:: If you've been paying attention over the past couple of years, you may have noticed that the word "vagina" has made its way into more-or-less everyday usage, assuming much of the role that used to be exclusively occupied by euphemisms that were, shall we say, less medical-sounding.

:: Walt Disney Pictures put David Mamet’s Anne Frank project into turnaround because they said his screenplay was “too dark.” Does any Hollywood studio actually look at a director’s work before they hire one? That’s like telling Werner Herzog his movies are “too German.” (I'm somewhat taken aback by the notion that an Anne Frank movie could be too dark. What is Disney planning to do to lighten the mood?)

All for now. More next week.

Sucking is a state of mind

The Bills have just finished losing to the Dolphins by a score of...well geez, I don't know, but it was a lot. It is now official: the Bills are terrible. Sure, they have a roster with some talent on it, but it doesn't matter; their coaching and front office are simply unable to put together a winning product. Oh well. Looks like I'll get my Sunday afternoons back pretty soon -- probably next week, after the Bills allow the Browns to get Win Number One on the season.

I note also that the Dolphins now play in "Land Shark Stadium", and I endorse this name. In fact, I think that the world needs more sports venues named for Saturday Night Live sketches. I'd love to see the World Series alternate between Church Lady Park and Blues Brothers Stadium, the Stanley Cup be hoisted by the home team at Weekend Update Arena, and the Super Bowl kick off on the turf at Mr. Short Term Memory Field.

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

Oddities abound!

:: Like Kerry, from whom the link herein comes to my attention, I don't do Twitter because I just don't get the point. (Likewise, I hate the way some folks marry their Facebook and Twitter accounts, so that I'm reading their Twits on FB, which often literally amounts to reading half of a conversation, but that's a topic for another day.) But this Twit-stream (honestly, I have no idea what you call it) is hilarious. A 29-year-old guy lives with his crotchety, foul-mouthed, and apparently highly verbally creative 73-year-old father. Probably NSFW, and it'll offend anyone who dislikes coarse language, but I loved it. (Luckily, there's an RSS feed so I can read this Twit-stream on Google Reader, which means that I still don't have to set up a Twit-stream of my own. Huzzah!)

:: Via Neatorama, I see 15 strange "Breast Cancer Awareness" products. The pink cement mixer is...amazing.

:: This last is utterly astonishing; I couldn't believe it when I saw it. It's a very short home movie, made in 1941, of a German couple leaving home for their wedding. What's notable is the brief shot of a young girl smiling happily as she leans out the upstairs window of the building to watch the happy couple depart. That young girl is Anne Frank. Seriously.



That is simply amazing.

More next week.

The wanking of the wankitrons

Color me kinda-sorta amused by the outbreak of right-wing joy at Chicago's defeat (along with Tokyo and Madrid) for the hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games. First, there's the odd spectacle that these people are actively rooting against the United States; further, there's the perception on their part that this is all about Barack Obama when the Bush Administration was also supportive of the Chicago Olympic effort, because, you know, American Presidential administrations tend to be supportive of holding Olympics in America.

This whole thing is staggeringly silly, of course, but it's precisely that silliness that is so revelatory of the rhetoric and the very thought behind it that now dominates the political right in this country. Their logic, on anything, boils down to exactly this:

PROPOSITION: Obama's position on Issue X is ______.

THEREFORE: Our position on Issue X is the exact opposite of ______.

COROLLARY: No factual information about the world will dissuade us from believing the opposite of Obama's position on Issue X.

SECOND COROLLARY: Any denial of what Obama wants, pertaining to Issue X, is a political win for us.

THIRD COROLLARY: Any denial of what Obama wants, pertaining to Issue X, is a colossal defeat for Obama and will be analyzed as a sign of how he will fare on all other Issues, no matter what those may be.

There is zero actual thought coming from the right these days. It's all just a bunch of knee-jerk reaction to them: Find out what Obama wants, and then oppose it. No matter what it is. I swear, these people would cheer if Obama ordered a pepperoni pizza and the pizzeria sent him a mushroom pizza by mistake. There's no sense of "Yes, this is an actual issue, but here's how we think it should be solved." There are no actual ideas on the right, aside from their continued religious belief that cutting taxes on rich people or bombing brown people will solve all problems. Nothing at all.

Especially interest to me is that third corollary up there. The theme of the day over at The Corner (where a number of the Right's greatest idiots, including Jonah Goldberg, reside) was that somehow Obama's failure to convince the Olympic Committee to award the games to Chicago somehow indicates something about the success of Obama's future foreign policy. Matthew Yglesias has some examples, and then points out the sheer stupidity on display there:

These are lame jokes, yes, but I also think they reveal the profound misunderstanding of how international relations works that exists on the right. The competition to host the 2016 Olympics is just that, a competition. It’s a friendly competition, yes, but it’s still a competition. It’s zero sum. If Rio wins, then Chicago and Sao Paulo and Tokyo lose. But the overall relationship between the United States and Iran is not a zero-sum competition. A world in which Iran accepts verifiable safeguards on its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and a relaxation of American sanctions is a world in which both the United States and Iran wind up better off. A world in which the US and Iran cooperate in Afghanistan is a world is which both the United States and Iran wind up better off. If we fight in Iran, we both wind up worse off.

And now, even as I'm writing this, I see that Newt Gingrich is saying the same thing, via his Twitter account. Remember when Gingrich was "the guy on the right with the ideas"? Well, OK, I don't either, but that's how the media saw him, and that's how they still see him, which is why the Twitter ramblings of a guy who was forced out of office by his own party more than ten years ago are still treated as newsworthy.

The Right's desperate need to see everything as a defeat for Barack Obama is embarrassing enough, but their general levels of cognitive dissonance are downright troubling. During the campaign, there was lots of comment about Obama's patriotism, or lack thereof, owing to the absence of a flag pin on the lapel of his jacket -- but somehow, cheering for Chicago to lose the Olympic bid is also patriotic. I well remember the tantrums the right used to have, during the Bush years, whenever any Democrat traveled overseas and said virtually anything that they could construe as being critical of the Bush foreign policy -- "Everybody should follow the President on foreign policy! Politics should stop at the water's edge! They're traitors!" I remember how un-American the Dixie Chicks were when one of them made an anti-Bush statement on the stage in Paris, but they sure lap it up when Sarah Palin criticizes Obama in Hong Kong. I will not be holding my breath, waiting for Republicans to denounce their own Senators who are traveling around the world to disrupt Administration policies.

Anyway, as for the Olympics themselves, congrats to Rio. I kind of hope they put the Olympic flame on top of Sugarloaf Mountain. But I also wonder if, given the apparently irritating political crap that's going to come up every time a host city is chosen and given the fact that Olympics represent enormous expense to their host cities, maybe it's time to simply put the Games someplace permanent -- say, Athens. That would solve some problems, wouldn't it? At least it would spare future US Presidents the unimaginable embarrassment of seeing their foreign policy credentials demolished by failing to secure a two-week quadrennial sporting event.

(Comments are shut off for this post.)

Some TeeVee Notes

Some stuff on teevee of late:

:: I make no apologies at all for my continuing love for Grey's Anatomy, which is now entering its sixth season. The show's ensemble continues to be strong, although I still seriously dislike Izzie Stevens (and I disliked her character even before it turned out that actress Katherine Heigl is a complete self-absorbed flake). I like how the show has modified its ensemble a little at a time, adding a character here and subtracting a character there; this maintains chemistry a lot more effectively than the approach taken by ER, which would introduce new characters in bunches, many times with less than stellar success. Sure, Grey's is pure soap opera, but sue me. I like it.

One thing about the recently-concluded "Death of George O'Malley" storyline bugged me, though. George was one of the original cast of surgery interns at Seattle Grace Hospital, all the way back from the show's start, but the actor who played him decided to leave, so George was killed off (in pretty grisly fashion, I might add). But before his horrific fatal accident, George had spent much of last season discovering that his major surgical skill was for trauma: his ability to think quickly and maintain his composure, and so on. George found his calling to such an extent that, an episode or two before the season finale, he joined the Army.

And with the exceptions of two characters, everybody on the show reacted as though this was the most horrible decision George could have possibly made. Everyone acted as though it was foregone conclusion that George would be killed in Iraq, everyone acted as though joining the Army was an automatic death sentence. I could see some of his friends reacting that way, but it bothered me that only one person actually said that they thought it was admirable and heroic.

Oh well. I'm still watching.

:: I really need to get off my arse and watch Season One of Dollhouse.

:: I suppose I should give Flash Forward a try, although I was kind of prejudiced against it by the fact that it seemed like every website I frequent other than my own had an annoying Flash ad for the show that would swoop across the screen and obscure the content. I hate that!

:: I really enjoyed the first two episode of last season of Castle, and I look forward to watching more of this show. I need to get back up to speed.

:: I don't like Parks and Recreation. It just isn't that funny to me.

:: Wow...I haven't watched any one of the CSIs this year, not even Miami. I guess I'm done with it.

:: I'm still enjoying The Mentalist, although I maintain that it would help things if Jane turned out to be wrong once in a while. But then, the show is probably able to slip all manner of plotholes past me whilst I gaze longingly at actress Robin Tunney.

:: Another year, another Amazing Race. This one had a pretty diabolical twist at the very beginning: the start line featured a challenge for the teams, and the last team to complete the challenge was eliminated from the Race on the spot. Wow. After that, it was the typical kind of thing; the teams were sent first to Japan where they appeared on one of those sadistic Japanese game shows and were required to eat something like a half-cup of wasabi in less than two minutes. The show's still fun, but I do kind of wish they'd find a way to change up the format a bit.

That's about it for the stuff I watch or don't watch, thus far in the new season.

Something for Thursday

Wow, I cannot get into a blogging rhythm this week to save my life. So here's some Mozart.



If this piece sounds a bit familiar, remember the scene from Amadeus:



Wow, I need to watch that movie again....

A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter

Best movie adaptation of a Stephen King tale: The Shawshank Redemption or Stand By Me?

Poor guy....

Noting the arrest in Switzerland of director Roman Polanski, I must say that I hope this means that he will, at long last, be able to soon bring to an end his thirty-plus year ordeal and find closure. Because, you know, fugitive pedophiles deserve closure, too.

A very public service message

I was offline a chunk of the last few days, so no Sentential Links this week. We'll return next week. Other content will come as the day warrants. Tune in!

Sunday Burst of Weirdness

[I've been away for a few days, enjoying some downtime away from work. Today I'm back to routine.]

Oddities abound!

:: I don't talk much about things "jumping the shark", although it's a pretty useful metaphor. My prime difficulty is that although I remember Fonzie jumping that shark on Happy Days, I was too young -- the episode aired days before my sixth birthday -- to recognize the Fonz's shark-jumping as the entire series's metaphorical shark-jumping. However, a few years later, my tastes had refined a bit -- not completely, but a bit -- and I was able to recognize a second moment from which Happy Days never recovered, in my eyes.

It's an episode where Potsie's got a problem: he's doing very poorly in school, specifically an Anatomy class, because he's failing left and right (owing, apparently, to the teacher's lousy methods or some such). He reaches the point of declaring his intention to drop out, but then his friends come to his rescue, finding a way to help him pass the test, which he does with flying colors. And how did he pass this exam on the human circulatory system? Well:



To this day I can remember thinking to myself, "Yeah, this show's pretty much done now." This aired when I was almost eight years old. O the wisdom I gained in those two years!

:: Seen on the shelves at a mini-mart near Ithaca, NY yesterday:



I know that the name of a product has little, if anything, to do with what it tastes like, but I am so not about to drink something called "Porkslap".

That's about all. I wasn't online as much this past week.

And now the awarding of Experience Points!

optimised family, originally uploaded by Birmingham News Room.

This kind of thing thrills me deeply: a guy in England has discovered the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. There's so much of interest in a story like this, even beyond the amazing nature of the find itself (and one of my life goals is to go to the UK someday and go to lots of museums to see all these old Anglo-Saxon relics). The guy who found the gold is referred to as a "metal detectorist". There is an actual, official definition of "treasure" in the UK, and whether a found pile of gold is a treasure or not is determined by the coroner. That must be nice -- "Hey, we have a call for you, but guess what! It's not a body!"

Link via MeFi, with a discussion thread with more information (as well as the typical MeFi wordplay, such as "This thread is useless without picts"). Here is a photoset of the Staffordshire Hoard.

Something for Thursday

Blame it on the bossa nova!

Rand-McNally 2, Sportswriters 0

What is it with sports commentators and their inability to talk about geography? In today's example, we have FOX Sports's Adam Schein talking about the Arizona Cardinals. One narrative for years regarding the Cardinals -- besides the fact that they have historically sucked, until last year -- is that they almost always lose when playing East Coast teams. This past week...well, here's Schein:

I couldn't believe how many talking heads declared the NFC champion Cardinals dead after a home loss to a good 49ers team. This was the single-most foolish notion flooding the airwaves. The Cards eradicated the stereotype they can't play in the Northeast by dominating the Jaguars on offense, defense and special teams.

Yup, the Cardinals beat the Jaguars pretty handily. But wait! Schein is indicating that the Jaguars, who play in Jacksonville, Florida, are a Northeast team! Maybe Miss South Carolina was on to something when she said that most US Americans don't have maps.